


Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Season 1, Episode 16, End of the Beginning

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s01e16 End of the Beginning, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 01, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 17:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17228258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode, later seasons, and potentially other MCU works. Complete.





	Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Season 1, Episode 16, End of the Beginning

Open to Garrett and Trip entering a safe house. They have a nice conversation until Mike Peterson in Deathlock mode shows up.

However, he leaves before doing them any actual damage.

Next, Victoria Hand, Garrett, Trip, and some other men are boarding Coulson’s plane. She points out there’s this radical new concept of contacting someone via technology to have a conversation rather than making it where someone has to physically come to you, and he’s mildly sarcastic in saying it’s nice to see her, too.

One piece of characterisation I like is, when Coulson leaves, Garrett motions for Hand to follow first.

Let me make it clear: Garrett is no gentleman. This doesn’t mean he’s not good at playing one. Him buying Raina a pretty dress in her preferred styled, helping some of the women step out of the fridge, this moment here, etc. are all touches I like.

On a different note, Agent Jasper Sitwell is among the agents. He’s been in several shorts and was in Captain America: Winter Soldier. He’s Hydra, though, I’m not sure if he knows about Garrett here or not.

Also, I can never remember Sitwell’s name. Every time he appears, I either have to look him up or mentally refer to him as ‘that guy I recognise’.

Once the plane has gone up in the air, May and Grant joins them all. It’s revealed the meeting is an attempted precaution against the Clairvoyant, and one agent says something about SHIELD not believing in psychics.

Referencing one of the two episodes I absolutely cannot stand in this series, Coulson declares he’s now a little more open-minded about a person being able to possess the abilities certain people are claiming the Clairvoyant has. He and the others continue they’re thinking the Clairvoyant might be someone SHIELD rejected from it’s index of gifteds.

They further suggest information compartmentalisation, and then, suggest nu!Faith be made an agent so that she can be the one who holds and dispenses all the information.

Ugh. I’ve literally written over a page about all I find wrong with this and why, but to not wildly boggle down the review: I do not like or agree with this for numerous reasons.

Over to the lab, Fitzsimmons are being responsible doctors and scientists. They’re drawing nu!Faith’s blood. Part of it is try to ensure she’s actually okay, but they also talk about how, even though it’s not good Coulson suffered so much through his treatment, they should try to study the drug as much as they can so that they can find out if it has a possibility of helping others.

I like this scene.

Coming in, Grant says the top brass wants to talk to nu!Faith.

Talking to them, she has the good idea of doing a double-blind, but this good idea isn’t enough to justify her suddenly becoming an agent.

Gregg does do a great job at the paternal look of pride he directs at her.

So, she’s made an agent. Sarcastic yay!

A smiling May brings a giddy Fitzsimmons up, Coulson gives a speech about how nu!Faith has totally earned this, and this would be wonderfully sweet if it wasn’t so frustratingly wrong.

Then, thankfully, the next scene comes.

Someone drops off a gauntlet for Deathlock Mike, and he receives a message via his implant that it’s time for them to meet.

Back on the plane, Sitwell points out to Coulson one of the potential dangers of this double-blind is that a team could end up heading straight into an ambush.

Thankfully, Hand appears. She says she and Sitwell are leaving, though, they’re going different places.

Next is a scene with nu!Faith and Garrett. She’s giving him information, and he’s jovial and vaguely paternal in how he interacts with her. Showing her some of his scars, the next episode’s title is dropped by him.

Nu!Faith soon looks at him with soft, starry-eyes, and it’s clear the empathy he’s extended has been recognised and is both appreciated and reciprocated.

When he reveals he’s a shipper for her and Grant, she’s a little uncomfortable/uneasy, but it’s also clear part of her is happy/excited.

Both Bennet and Paxton do great here.

In the lab, Fitz has modified May’s weapons, and not realising May is there, Simmons comes in talking about nu!Faith’s blood.

May’s response is, if there’s any sign of side-effects happening to Coulson or nu!Faith, they should tell her first.

There’s a scene with Coulson and nu!Faith where she gives information and he pep-talks at her.

Meanwhile, Trip and Grant are at prison. Trip brings up Grant’s family, and it’s clear there’s some tension with Trip being Garrett’s new specialist on both ends. They also disagree on Trip’s desire to execute the Clairvoyant with Grant insisting they bring him, because of rules and duty and the like and not because he’s unhealthily devoted to their shared mentor.

Granted, some of that was more retrospective subtext than actual text.

Elsewhere, May is with her new partner, and he’s either trying to hit on her or is just being awkward in trying to forge a connection with her.

Over to Coulson and Garrett with Garrett telling a wild story about a mission. Only thing is, Coulson was actually there for said mission, and it didn’t go down the way Garrett is telling it. Heh.

Admitting both this and the fact he forget Coulson was even there, Garrett’s response is his way makes for a better story.

I love the kind of charisma Paxton brought to Garrett, and Gregg’s often more restrained style played so well off of it.

Of course, Coulson has to irritate me by looking at his phone while driving.

In this instance, I can understand both that he might need the information immediately and that there might be actual legally binding mandates that prevent him from handing the phone over to Garrett to open it. However, there’s no indication he can’t pull over, get the information, and then, resume driving.

All three teams run into trouble, and on May’s team, after they separate, her new partner shows himself to be an idiot.

Let me say, with the fact there is a huge, real-life problem with police officers, who are mostly white, killing black civilians, most of whom are unarmed, I feel uncomfortable saying a white government agent should be doing more to kill a black man, and when it comes to Mike the character, I don’t what him to die. I like him.

This being said, Mike in Deathlock mode is attacking the partner, and despite constantly shooting Mike, the partner never aims for the head. Maybe it wouldn’t work, but this isn’t a reason not to try. Mike is an immediate threat to this man’s life. He’s a potential threat to May and innocent civilians that might be around. Attempting a kill shot is the right thing to do in this instance.

All this being said, I do like what the partner does say when Mike gets him in a chokehold. “Mr Peterson, stop. You have a son. Ace. He needs you. We can still help you, Mike.”

Tearfully, Mike declares, “Mike Peterson is dead.”

J. August Richards and Titus Welliver do awesome work here.

Mike either kills or just severely beats up on the partner, and reappearing, May sends out an alert.

Hearing it, the other teams head to her.

Meanwhile, she doesn’t aim for the head, either, but he leaves instead of hurting her.

Back at the plane, the partner is in critical condition.

Everyone argues, and Hand is rightfully irritated at Garrett for calling her ‘Vic’. It’s eventually agreed the person May and her partner were sent to find is currently the strongest candidate for the Clairvoyant.

There’s a scene of Fitzsimmons talking about how they’re being separated. She’s fine with it and even giddy about the lab at the new place she’s going, and he’s not so happy. He’s even less happy when it’s revealed Trip will be keeping her company.

Over with May, Coulson, and nu!Faith, they discover one of the bullets May’s partner shot was one of the modified ones Fitz was showing May earlier. Therefore, they can track Deathlock Mike.

A whole large SWAT team follows the tracker, and everyone is responsible and careful with nu!Faith and Fitz’s safety. Deathlock almost kills Grant, and Garrett’s lucky Grant didn’t do worse than mildly complain about this.

Following Deathlock Mike, everyone ends up in a basement with a disabled man. It doesn’t seem he can physically move, and given what’s later revealed, I’m not sure if he was talking via a machine or if he was just an innocent, severely brain damaged man who Garrett successfully set up to give the impression he was interacting with everyone.

I’m not sure if this was always the plan or if something changed, but suddenly, Grant up and shoots the fake Clairvoyant.

In a move I like, most of the agents immediately aim their weapon at Grant when this happens, as they should, and he almost immediately hands his weapon over to May with her taking it as she continues to hold her gun on him.

Everyone who was watching from a screen is shocked, though, Hand recovers quickly enough to make a comment about the fake Clairvoyant not seeing that coming.

I really hope the fake Clairvoyant had been conscious and was a willing partner of Garrett’s. This wouldn’t make what Grant did anywhere near justified, but it is a tiny bit easier to swallow that an evil mastermind’s minion shot a fellow evil mastermind partner than a person who was being forced to help an evil mastermind was killed or, worse, a severely disabled individual who either had no idea what was going on or had no power to stop it nor communicate with the people who could potentially help him being shot in cold blood.

On a different note, Dalton does great here. There’s a dullness to Grant’s eyes, and given what happens in a later episode, I think it’s genuine. I’m not sure he feels legitimate remorse, but I’ve never viewed Grant as having true sadistic tendencies.

The next scene has May putting Grant into a van, and watching this, Garrett defends Grant’s actions to Coulson.

Coulson doesn’t condemn what Grant did, but he is a little uneasy about it.

Garrett’s like, well, maybe your whole I’m going to make him care about other people on a more personal level thing worked a little too well. He offers to escort Grant, but Coulson wants to talk to Grant first.

Agreeing, Garrett says he’s going to immediately resume searching for Deathlock Mike, and he tells Coulson not to be too hard on Grant.

When he leaves, Grant’s eyes briefly follow him.

May comes over to tell Coulson that Fury wants to meet up with him.

Later, Grant’s in an interrogation room. Nu!Faith comes in, and she gives him some water. “Why’d you do it?”

He claims he lost it due to anger. Then, he lists some of the things the actual Clairvoyant has done to rile up the actual anger she holds. Finally, he does a good job of implying without explicitly stating that the final straw was he felt her life would be in constant danger as long as the Clairvoyant continued to live.

Even before the reveal I was never a Skyeward shipper, but at least, they never annoyed me like some UST potential pairings do.

In real life, I wouldn’t accept an officer shooting an unarmed person for this reason, but in fiction, I usually can accept it. I wouldn’t say what Grant did was right, but him killing a person with psychic powers who’d already almost succeeded in killing a girl he was falling for once due to a sincere belief this was the only way she could truly be safe didn’t really bother me.

She asks what happens know, and he answers he’ll face a SHIELD review board. “Whatever punishment, I’ll take it. I deserve it. But I don’t regret it.”

True words here.

Meanwhile, Fitz is trying to set up a secure line to talk to Simmons, and he manages to get her on the line, but it keeps breaking up. Trying to fix this, he discovers someone else has already set up a secure line of their own, and then, Simmons says people on her end are rushing to the situation room.

The line goes dead.

In Coulson’s office, nu!Faith comes in, and she wants to talk through her feelings about the whole Grant situation, but he reveals he’s worried Grant killed the wrong man. “How do we know it was him? He never spoke. The computer spoke for him.”

On the one hand, Coulson is right, and I don’t have a problem with him having a gut feeling about this. On the other hand, a disabled person using assistive technology to communicate maybe isn’t the best reason to put forward as doubt of them committing a crime.

Sure, if a human voice yells fire in a crowded theatre and one of the theatre-goers is a person who can’t physically speak, then, yeah, rule them out as a suspect unless there’s good reason to suspect they put someone who can physically speak up to it, but if a person is murdered and the signs point to a person who can’t physically speak, well, not being able to physically speak isn’t a requirement to kill someone.

It turns out, though, like I do, he’s wondering if the fake Clairvoyant might have been a prop.

Interestingly, nu!Faith initially assumes he suspects the fake Clairvoyant might have been faking, and she shows horror at the thought a completely innocent man might have been shot by one of her teammates, especially since fear for her safety was one of the big triggers for it happening.

Bennet does great here.

Then, she brings up an idea that’s been brewing: What if the Clairvoyant, whether dead or alive, was reading their SHIELD files rather than using psychic powers?

“He’s an agent of SHIELD,” Coulson announces.

Again, he’s right, and this isn’t an illogical conclusion, but other possibilities are a hacker with more skills than her or a former agent who knows how to continue getting in-and-out of their systems without being detected.

The next scene has Coulson barging into Grant’s interrogation room. Grant tries to say something, but Coulson says he doesn’t want apologies or excuses, and Grant tries to say he’s not making any excuses.

However, the only thing Coulson wants to know is if Grant made the call himself or if he was ordered to.

I can only imagine the inner panic Grant’s experiencing, but keeping calm, he reacts the in a way that presents himself as a loyal, confused member of Team Coulson. “What?”

“Did someone order you to kill the Clairvoyant?”

Meanwhile, Fitz is tracing the mystery phone line, and he discovers it’s May’s.

Naturally, she discovers him.

He’s shown to be horrible at attempting lie, but she lets him go without hurting him. Running into nu!Faith, he tells her he’s discovered May’s unauthorised, encrypted hardline.

Of course, this makes May a suspect, and nu!Faith orders him to go immediately cut the line.

He does right as May is starting to give an update.

Her response is to grab a gun.

Cue Fitz running and her chasing.

In the interrogation room, Grant says he wasn’t put on the plane for Coulson to make him a better person, he was put on it to make the hard calls. “I answered your question. I wasn’t working with anybody. I take full responsibility for my own actions.”

I don’t like it when characters are right about something but there’s nothing giving a real reason what’s propelling them to know/think/suspect what they do. Again, maybe, Coulson has suddenly gotten a gut feeling, but would he really so strongly trust it over what he believes he knows about Grant?

Nu!Faith bursts in. “We have a problem.”

Elsewhere, May is stalking an unarmed Fitz with her gun, because, this is a perfectly rational, non-escalating way to handle this situation. Then, she shoots, and only the bullet resistant glass he’s behind protects him.

I believe May cares about Coulson and nu!Faith, but I genuinely don’t understand how, after this, anyone can truly believe she gives a damn about any of the other team members. She's a borderline sociopath. At most, she’ll protect them when it’s her duty to and she believes they deserve for her to follow that duty. Otherwise, she could take or leave any of them. 

Grant did a terrible thing to Fitzsimmons, but unlike her, I do believe he genuinely cared about them.

Coulson appears with his gun, and she claims her gun is just an icer.

Even if she’s telling the truth, and I don’t believe she is, then, what exactly was her plan once she had Fitz unconscious?

“This one’s not,” he replies.

Nu!Faith appears with her own gun. “You better listen to the man, Agent May.”

Lowering her gun, May says she can explain everything but not here.

Coulson, however, says it makes sense now why Deathlock Mike put her partner in critical condition but left her alive.

This isn’t good evidence. Deathlock Mike also attacked Trip and Garrett’s safehouse, but aside from property damage, he didn’t do anything but show up before almost immediately leaving. When the SWAT team showed up, Deathlock Mike didn’t hurt any of them. Her partner is actually the only one who went up against him and suffered this episode.

Him pointing out Deathlock Mike didn’t stick around to protect his boss is a good point, though. If Deathlock Mike’s actual controller was either not there or both above suspicion and physically able with a weapon their own, they wouldn’t need him around to protect them during the taking in of a disabled man with no weapons of his own.

May genuinely doesn’t understand what exactly she’s being accused of here until he demands, “Who’s the real Clairvoyant?”

All this is interrupted by the plane suddenly changing course, and she swears this isn’t her doing.

Over to Hand, she declares, when the plane touches down, everyone but Coulson is to be killed.

Fin.


End file.
